If You’re Having a Wreck of a Week, These Garbage Disposal Cookies Are for You

We’ve all had those weeks. You know the ones. The weeks where, all major world news aside, the pressures and demands of your individual universe—of which you are the center—seem to be weighing in exceptionally heavy, and you never can seem to really get into your groove? I don’t care who you are or how well-adjusted you may be, you’ve had at least one of those weeks in your life.

I happen to be all up in one of those weeks myself. In fact, as I write this, I’m definitely past deadline (this article should have been written 12 hours ago) and have a fat stack of items from today’s to-do list that just aren’t getting crossed off. A number of them were already carry-overs from yesterday and the day prior. As I sit here, I’m surrounded by complete and utter filth. I very recently, and unexpectedly, adopted a stray pitbull puppy. Never have I ever given so much attention to the cleanliness of my floors only to have them be more disgusting than I’ve ever seen anyone’s floors. She slobbers, she potties, she drags in the outdoors, she chews things into individual fibers and spreads them everywhere. My partner is gone, six hours away, during the work week; thus, I am left alone to train this animal and excessively clean up behind her (because I’m probably not so good at the training part). I’m certain my two cats are beyond furious with me for bringing this loud, foul-smelling creature into our home; they may never recover from the trauma. My back won’t stop aching. I can fit into exactly zero pairs of my jeans at the present. And I could go on but I’m sure you’ve gotten the picture… boohoo. Truly, woe is me.

So here’s the thing: It’s all totally and completely fine. During a different week, the things above wouldn’t necessarily feel so significant, because they’re honestly not, I know that. But this is exactly the type of week that Garbage Disposal Cookies were made for. (This I know—because I developed them this very week.)

Darcy Lenz

GET THE RECIPE: Garbage Disposal Cookies

Garbage Disposal Cookies—which are, in essence, a raunchier version of a kitchen sink cookie—are all about staring a trash week (or day) in the eye, and accepting it for what it is. For me, they’re about stepping back, and not taking it all so seriously. Most of all, they’re about looking into the pit of your childlike, junk food-loving heart, and identifying what feels most right loaded into a rich, thick peanut butter cookie. A combination of chopped up Oreo cookies, peanut butter cups, and white chocolate chips was the ticket for me, but it may not be for you.

If Twix bars speak louder than Reese’s cups in your heart, I suggest you listen. If peanut butter doesn’t work for you, you can definitely use a different nut butter in the cookie dough, as well as replace the peanut butter cups with a more compatible candy. Hate white chocolate? Nine times out of ten, so do I. But somehow, it works here; maybe give it a try if you’re feeling open.

Darcy Lenz

Beyond encouragement to experiment, I do have a a few other concrete tips for making the most satisfying Garbage Disposal Cookies possible:

• One: Before measuring out your nut butter, spritz your measuring cup with a little baking spray. This prevents sticking and makes measuring a goopy ingredient more pleasurable.
• Two: When you’re mixing the peanut butter/egg/vanilla into the batter, mix just until the yellow of the egg yolk disappears. And when you add in the dry ingredients, mix until the flour is just incorporated—if there’s still some flour on the sides of the bowl, that’s fine. When you stir the add-ins by hand, you’ll finish incorporating everything… but you don’t want to over-mix the dough.
• Three: Speaking of add-ins, I really like hearty chunks of Oreo and Reese’s cup in my Garbage Disposal Cookie. If you suspect you may enjoy the same, just cut each cookie/cup into quarters, rather than chopping them to pieces.
• Four: When it comes time to scoop out your cookies, I can’t recommend enough that you use a digital kitchen scale. This ensures that you use the same amount of dough in each cookie and that your cookies bake evenly. About 1.75 ounces per cookie was the perfect size for me.

If I can offer one more bit of advice, sharing your Garbage Disposal Cookies with a neighbor or friend will help you start feeling right as rain even faster. Before you know it, a filthy house will look more like proof of how lucky you are that you were able to give another living thing a safe home of their own. And the pants you can’t pull up past your thighs will be a reminder of the fact that you’ve had ample access to food during these weird, crazy times. And on and on. Neat, right?

Never underestimate the view-shifting power of a good cookie.